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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25799737">Just As They Were</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemurious/pseuds/lemurious'>lemurious</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Arda Forged [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works &amp; Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ableist Language, Ableist ideas actually, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Arda Forged, Dark, Disability, First Age, Gen, Healing, Implied Murder of Children, Last Homely House, Oath of Fëanor, Orcs, Rivendell | Imladris, Third Age, Valinor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:13:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,303</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25799737</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemurious/pseuds/lemurious</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Have you considered how <em>all</em> Elves seem to be perfect in appearance? Have you ever wondered <em>what must happen to the rest</em>?</p><p>A series of ficlets set in a dark 'verse where each Elven child would have to be deemed impeccable in body and spirit before even given a name and a permission to survive.</p><p>(No graphic depictions of violence, but allusions to violence that may be disturbing, hence the warning).</p><p>Chapter 1: The Sculptor (Nerdanel and the Children of Fëanor)<br/>Chapter 2: The Healer (Elrond and the Last Homely House)<br/>Chapter 3: The Shape-shifter (Mairon and the Origin of Orcs)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel, Fëanor | Curufinwë/Nerdanel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Arda Forged [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>135</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Sculptor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tirion was in uproar of dooms and oaths and red sands in Alqualondë, her husband’s rashness and cruelty, how there was nothing and nobody he would spare for his greatest treasures.</p><p>Nerdanel knew it to be true.</p><p>Except that his greatest treasures were seven, not three.</p><p>Nerdanel was allowed in Tirion, she grew up there, tall and muscular, with a crooked smile of uneven teeth, yet just beautiful enough to have been given a name and a permission to reach adulthood.</p><p>Until now she had not set foot in the city for as long as it had taken her to raise her seven sons.</p><p>Nerdanel would never say, her seven children.</p><p>Because she had nine.</p><p>As she lay in dead faint after three full days of labor, Eärwen and Anairë visited their new kinswoman to cast their blessing and their judgment, as befits the custom of those selected to bear the light of the Valar, which could only grace the most symmetrical of faces, the smoothest of skins, the most melodious of voices.</p><p>She never learnt what happened to her twin daughters. Which aspect of them was considered insufficient.</p><p>Afterwards, Anairë tried to console her, it happens to every Elfwoman, she said, she herself had to give up four children by now, for how could one befoul the Light of Valinor with less than perfect stature?</p><p>Nerdanel screamed and raged. Fëanor rushed into the room, face pale, the fire in his eyes ready to reduce Valinor to ashes.</p><p>Never again, they swore.</p><p>They would not forsake their children, even if that meant exile from Tirion. They would not even use their Noldor names anymore, not since they have learned Sindarin from newcomers in Mandos.</p><p>(Only once Nerdanel begged Fëanor to forgive, to visit his half-brother, when she found out that Anairë had yet another son, and considered him too short in stature to be allowed to live. Fëanor strolled into Fingolfin’s chambers, a teenage Maedhros at his side, their armor splendid in the light of Telperion, their eyes burning with fury and determination, and Maedhros swore to protect the still-nameless baby with his life, just as Fëanor was threatening to take the lives of Fingolfin and Anairë both, unless they let their son survive – him and all their other children to come, regardless of their perceived deficiencies.)</p><p>Their sons grew in care and challenges and joy, and bedazzled them with their talents. Maedhros's swordsmanship. The music of Maglor and woodscraft of Celegorm. Curufin’s forges and Caranthir’s potions. The maps drawn by Amras in such detail they were prized by the Teleri only below their boats. The Elves who seemed about to walk right out of Amrod’s canvasses…</p><p>And if Maglor could barely see, it was a reason for Fëanor to learn to melt glass and for Nerdanel to build a frame for a pair of spectacles.</p><p>If Celegorm the Fair’s white skin, white hair and red eyes were burned by the light of the Trees, he would hone his hunting skills clad in a cloak and hood, sometimes accompanied by Caranthir the Dark, whose wine-dark patches spread like one of Amras’s beautiful maps on his face, who cared about the properties of plants more than the exhilaration of the hunt.</p><p>The Ambarussa morphed into a single name of a family shorthand, easier when the twins went everywhere together and Amrod did not speak to anyone save his twin anyway, in a language of their own, quickly adopted by everyone in the family, though Maglor would sometimes complain when he would not be able to follow the gestures with his eyes.</p><p>If no forge in Tirion would accept Curufin, Nerdanel built her own, and told her son that since she did not expect him to dance a jig on the anvil, why would he worry about his legs?</p><p>Eventually Curufin designed a pair of intricate braces for himself, and how he wished there were others who could use them too. But theirs was the only family he knew who would defy the Valar and the Eldar alike with every breath, every inch they would grow, every time their names would leave their mother’s lips.</p><p>Fëanor swore he would not let the Valar claim any more of his creations, and everyone thought he meant the Silmarils.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Healer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three Ages, and history runs in circles.</p><p>When endless battles scorch the land, though this time in the East, and Elven ships are leaving in droves, when Lórien is lost in reflections of glories past, and Thranduil’s people barricade themselves in caves, Elrond thinks of his childhood, of Doriath and Nargothrond - and opens the gates of Rivendell.</p><p>They come pouring in, penniless refugees and broken soldiers, former heroes now imprisoned inside their minds and former traitors who can no longer hold a sword.</p><p>In the end, Elrond knows he is doing it for his family.</p><p> </p><p>For Elwing, whose father was named Thingol’s Heir to emphasize his position compared to the siblings deemed unworthy of the name, or any name at all.</p><p>Whose brothers disappeared right at the time when their deaths could be blamed on the Fëanorians, those twisted beings who had affronted the Valar since birth, court whispers said.</p><p>Elwing knew her brothers were never called by name while they still lived, becoming Eluréd and Elurín only when it was required by the story to inspire hatred and vengeance.</p><p>When she had twins of her own, she named them in the womb and made them swear on her Silmaril to never take a life in judgment.</p><p> </p><p>For Eärendil, born of Idril, whose feet were forged of steel that shone like silver, after Curufin designed them in his atonement for the horrors of Helcaraxë, where Idril’s feet were claimed by frostbite, and her father openly denied the law of the Valar to save his daughter as he could not save his wife.</p><p>It was because of Idril Celebrindal that for centuries the Gondolindrim were the only Noldor to gather their injured from battlefields and bring them back into the city, and not only to prevent them from betraying its location.</p><p> </p><p>For Maedhros, who Elrond remembers grinning at an old joke of finally having become a true Fëanorian once he lost his hand. Flawed and defiant and doomed to fail, and still refusing to bow before any of the Valar.</p><p>Elrond prefers to focus his memories on Maedhros’s raspy laughter and his sword lessons, lest the guilt overtakes him again. No matter how many bodies are healed and spirits are soothed in his Last Homely House, there will always be one for whom Elrond was too late.</p><p> </p><p>For Maglor, who taught Elrond all he knew of healing. Who continues to roam Eriador like a ghost, like a legend, collecting children placed on the doorsteps and on the mounds in the forest, only to leave them at the gates of Rivendell.</p><p>And whispers go around campfires far in the Eastern grasslands, of changelings, of unwanted orphans taken in by Elven kings, though for them Elves are a matter of tale and not of history.</p><p> </p><p>For Celebrían, exquisite in her beauty, the only child who would match up to Lady Galadriel’s expectations for the heiress of the House of Finwë.</p><p>Whose quick wit and deep intelligence has entranced Elrond since their first meeting.</p><p>Whose black moods and violent visions had kept her ensnared under the mallorn trees in Lórien, the dark secret of the golden wood, until he took her to Rivendell after their wedding.</p><p> </p><p>For their children, who grew up between the abandoned and the discarded, the battle-scarred and the senile.</p><p>His boys, who learned to suture a wound before they could read, not that the letters dancing in front of their eyes could easily settle into words. They have always preferred to send their messages by sword or scalpel than by ink. And if Elladan’s skill in setting bones has gained fame across Eriador, Elrohir chose to heal the kind of injuries that leave no mark on the body.</p><p>His daughter, whose words often come out mangled, shivering, in pieces, in sharp syllables like a song of a blackbird. Who has been writing down what little they have learned of healing, so that it would remain once their home becomes a distant memory.</p><p> </p><p>All three of his children have refused the passage from the Havens.</p><p> </p><p>Elrond chokes with the sudden urgency of the wish to join them, to stay in the land he has learned to love through harvest and famine, through the fleeting beauty of seasons that carry away the mortal lives and make them worth protecting.</p><p>But how could he deny the knowledge that another Homely House needs to be built, perhaps, has needed to be built for three Ages?</p><p>And who else but Elrond – who carries within himself the skill of Maglor, the defiance of Elwing, the determination of Idril, the courage of Maedhros, the compassion of Celebrían now awaiting him in Tirion, the dedication of his children - would dare build it in Valinor?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Shape-shifter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He was called Mairon, and they said he had golden hands.</p><p>Though compliments felt cheap when Aulë could hammer life itself into a shape and fill it with spirit like pouring molten metal into a mold, and Mairon’s proudest works appeared as mere trinkets compared to the breathtaking complexity of a new being opening their eyes.</p><p>Until he saw Aulë crouch in abject humiliation, lifting his hammer above their heads, ready to destroy a mind that just awoke on Arda rather than anger Eru by his disobedience.</p><p>The next time Aulë called him admirable, he walked out of the forge.</p><p> </p><p>He was called Sauron, and his name became a battle cry.</p><p>“The Abhorred!” his forces roared. “The abhorred, the discarded, dealing death in return!”</p><p>They were a pitiful crew at first. A handful of fire Maiar, tracing ash and sputtering smoke, barred from the serene gardens and lofty halls of Valinor. The only wingless Maia of Manwë’s court, who had nothing awaiting her beyond the Sea but sneers at her twisted body.</p><p>Survival was hard in the mountain passes, and lean centuries followed. They were looking for wood to build scaffolding when they found the first Elven children at the crossroads, left to certain death in the Northern winter.</p><p>The foundlings were warmed by the flames of the Valaraukar and brought to the barracks, and Mairon raised his first army.</p><p>Over the years his new recruits built him towers that razed the skies and harnessed mountain streams to power his foundries. They created a language of their own, half sounds for those whose hands would not be nimble enough, half gestures for those whose throats would refuse to make a noise.</p><p>They were called twisted, tortured beyond repair, for what else could explain this lack of pleasing symmetry and harmony of body and mind?</p><p>They got no mercy. Not as captives. Not as refugees. Not as civilians.</p><p>They were called Orcs, and death was the fate they could expect.</p><p>They fought for the only home they knew, for their names freely given and a place in the ranks.</p><p>And they would never desert him, and would never betray him, and would never forget.</p><p> </p><p>He was called the Necromancer, for he would bring back to life those left for dead.</p><p>After a rare victory in one of the increasingly frequent skirmishes, the Orcs realized that they were alone. Not an Elf has returned to collect the injured.</p><p>Mairon ordered the Orcs back to the battlefield with as many stretchers as they could bear. He heated his instruments and turned up the lamps, and asked for the strongest wine.</p><p>He did not yet know how to set a bone, how to suture skin, which plants could be distilled for cleaning wounds, which infusions dulled the pain.</p><p>But in time, he would learn to forge a body like steel.</p><p> </p><p>He was called the Shape-shifter, and he shifted their shapes, like any surgeon worth their name does to their patients.</p><p>His smithies churned out crutches and hooks and wheels, and his armies moved in a ragged ungrace through the field. His crossbow regimen belted into chairs, carried on top of war machines, whose pilots could move them by feet alone, or by a mere twist of their chins.</p><p>And to those who would not cease to mourn the loss of their legs, he gave wings.</p><p>He built beasts of gears and engines, and took them to the skies, and called them dragons, and told their new riders to rain fire and shrapnel on the battlefield.</p><p> </p><p>The land was boiling in war, and the surgeon became a warlord out of need and ruthless determination, and perhaps, a kind of love.</p><p>There could be no peace when one side believes they are fighting the forces of evil. When the other side knows that nothing but their complete extermination would leave the enemy satisfied.</p><p> </p><p>He was called the Lieutenant, and was offered pardon in what was assumed to be his final defeat.</p><p>But how could he accept Eönwë’s pleas to return to Valinor, when his soldiers were scattered across the lands?</p><p>When he knew that their dead would not be considered to be worth a grave nor their survivors worth a truce?</p><p>When he was still waiting for Aulë’s hammer to come crashing down?</p><p> </p><p>When it did, it went beyond his darkest fears.</p><p>He did not realize that the Valar would write off half a continent as a mere casualty in their triumph of victory.</p><p>He was admirable and abhorred, a sorcerer and a general, and a surgeon and a smith.</p><p>Battered by the storm that could not drown out the grief raging in his chest, he swore revenge. If it cost everything he was, still he would not rest until his armies marched on Valinor - and then, the Void.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This is part of the Arda Forged 'verse. </p><p>Mairon's work as a surgeon is described in more detail in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801730/chapters/59981527">With My Eyes You Shall See</a>.</p><p> Eönwë’s take on his final meeting with Mairon is in the <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25539178/chapters/61967995#workskin">Now We Are Become Death</a> chapter of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25539178/chapters/61967761">No Glory for the Living</a>.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The sequel, focused on the Valar and the Maiar, is <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313247/chapters/64072036">Those Who Walked Away</a>.</p><p>Kudos and comments always very much appreciated! I am also lemurious on tumblr.</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26343043">As Lark Falls Headlong</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya">Mertiya</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
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